Growing up in an impoverished area of rural Lincolnshire, dependent on my Mum’s disability benefit (and the full time carer’s allowance my step-Dad got for looking after her) as our only household income, made me acutely aware of the inequality and poverty that blights our society (and the harsh reality of what living on benefits actually means).

With my Mum and Dad (standing slightly awkwardly on the left) at graduation in 2013, a proud day with the people who supported me and got me there

This has left me with a lifelong desire to do what I can to redress some of the wrong and imbalances in our country, and to attempt to make things better for ordinary people. That’s the key reason I want to be a Councillor. To use the (limited) powers and influence of the position to do what I can to help people and to contribute to the creation of a more equal and sustainable society.

This would inform my priorities as a Councillor, where I would attempt to use the limited resources of local government to, as far as possible, oppose and mitigate the harmful influence of austerity (currently driving inequality), and its associated scapegoating of the most vulnerable in our society; and stand up for local people.

I’m one of the main organisers of the Bristol People’s Assembly, and spend most of my time in politics helping build up local resistance against austerity and cuts. A big part of this involves lobbying and pressuring councillors to vote a certain way in council meetings – predominantly against the cuts budget’s we’ve had passed onto us these last few years. Becoming a Councillor myself would help cut out the middle man.

Me giving out placards at the start of the Bristol People’s Assembly protest against Osborne’s emergency budget last year (where £12 billion was cut from welfare as £12 billion was added to defence spending, and £83 billion of tax was simply uncollected)

On top of this, I was very alarmed to discover the average age of a councillor in the UK is 60. Young people like myself are often maligned for failing to engage in politics – especially local politics – and for not voting (acutely so in council elections). But is it any wonder when politics seems so remote from us, and our local representatives are unrelatable grey old predominantly white and predominately male politicians.

Whilst many of our elderly representative bring valuable expertise, and can be very sympathetic to our concerns, they can never truly understand what its like being young in austerity Britain. They’ve been saved from the current experience of being young, with the mountains of debt attached to trying to get an education; of having to live with your parents (or a house share) well into your adult years due to the impossibility of saving for a deposit and the astronomical cost of rent; of being told the value of your labour isn’t even worth the fake ‘Living Wage’ the Tory’s are brining in for the over 25s; the knowledge that we’ll probably live long enough to see the environmental disasters and climate change our elders have prepared for us; etc. I want to be elected to try and end the chronic under-representation of young people and put my generations concerns back on the agenda.

Me, at a student demonstration against fees and cuts in 2012, highlighting the Liberal Democrats broken promises that betrayed my generation and did so much to disillusion so many

For the last two and a bit years I’ve lived right on the border between Windmill Hill and Bedminster (next to Bedminster train station that oddly isn’t in Bedminster ward) and spend more time in the ward then I do in my own. Bedminster has a rich history, and is home to a vibrant community, with bustling high-streets of independent shops, business and fantastic pubs.

As well as being a welcoming and integral part of our city, Bedminster has its problems. There is poverty and deprivation throughout the ward. There are few parks and green open spaces. Public transport is extremely poor, nearby residents parking schemes have exacerbated endemic parking problems, and cycling provision is woefully inadequate Housing is also a central issue. We have a high percentage of people living in the private rented sector, many in insecurely rented and poorly maintained buildings at a very high cost.

Redevelopments can offer good opportunities, but without any provision for social or affordable homes they risk becoming the tools of gentrification that push up house prices and force out local people, many of whom have lived here for generations. This is exacerbated by the unscrupulous practices of letting agents like C. J. Hole who sparked outrage last year when they wrote to landlords encouraging them to switch to C. J. Hole to raise their rents (and C. J. Hole’s profits); and Taylor’s who use discriminatory practices to prevent people on benefits for renting homes (see petition: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-discrimination-against-benefit-claimants ).

To tackle these problems Bedminster needs Councillors determined to take a stand and fight for the ward and its residents, and willing to work with the community and local campaigns. I will be such a Councillor.

“These cuts are being presented by government as inevitable, but they are not; they are an ideological choice by the Tories. It is George Osborne who has chosen to slash public spending and force those on the lowest incomes to pay the brunt of bankers’ excesses. Instead, those best able to pay should be asked to foot the bill through fairer taxation and by cracking down on tax avoidance by big business.”

Of course not everyone was happy with that decision. It would seem that chiefly amongst those dissatisfied with Greens voting against cuts were our colleagues in the local Labour party. Labour had once again voted en masse to pass on these crippling cuts to the communities they’re meant to serve, and then branded us as “utterly irresponsible” for refusing to do the same.

My opponents in Bedminster went as far as to devote 1/5 of the front of their latest newsletter to reprinting this and even spuriously trying to claim it proved we were against recycling, and the adult social care precept Green councillors proposed and passed with the support of the local Labour and Lib Dems.

From the press release they sent out further attacking us, and interactions with some of their candidates on twitter, it seems their main argument for voting for cuts is that if they didn’t councils could be deposed by Whitehall and according to Labour it would have “resulted in Bristol being run by civil servants in London” who would then impose the cuts themselves.

As we explored in a previous blog, this is extremely unlikely due to the high political cost such a move would entail, and the resulting confrontation would at least gives us the chance (and I think a very good chance at that) to get the funding we need to run the services we rely on.

The only other option is to do as Bristol Labour have and accept the impossibility of resisting cuts locally, voting for cuts budgets where councillors make minor amendments to try and implement them in the least harmful way possible (the so called ‘dented shield’).

This is not a viable option.

Despite Mayor Ferguson’s pledge to implement the cuts without attacking frontline services many of these have already taken a beating to ‘realise’ the almost £90 million of savings forced upon our city. For example, halving the number of staff enforcing fly tipping has resulted in an almost doubling of the incidents of fly tipping on our streets (what a coincidence); libraries have lost staff and opening hours (and have an uncertain future with £635,000 worth of cuts still to be made after the local elections); the Ashton Vale book-mobile has been axed; the budget for social care has been savaged (for adults it was cut by 30% between 2010 and 2015 alone); youth centres have been lost; the Bush respite centre has had to half its beds; the list goes on.

So far where the cuts to frontline services have been most extreme – like to the Bush respite centre – it has only effected a small minority of our (most vulnerable) citizens (not that that makes it any better), or where it has effected larger numbers it has been through much less life or death problems like fly tipping. As austerity intensifies over the next 4 years this will not be the case.

This month the council announced it expects to have to reduce its spending by another £75.3 million by 2020. This is on top of the £90 million cuts already made (from a starting budget of £201million in 2010). No amount of tinkering will enable the council to reduce its budget by nearly 80% and still maintain essential frontline services. There is no least harmful way to make cuts on this scale.

Infographic from The Bristol Cable

In other words, if the council keeps on doing what Councillor Helen Holland and Bristol Labour like to describe as ‘the responsible thing’ and keep voting for the cuts budgets central government is passing on to us, at some point in the next four years we will see the widespread failure of more and more essential council services.

When we start to experience widespread failure of essential services, it is going to make little difference to the people who rely upon them if these cuts are being implemented by the council or by central government officials. If we fail and the council is deposed the result will be the same as if we do nothing. If we try we at least have the chance to avert this disaster and get the budget we need. That’s why I think councillors who abandon their obligation to fight for the residents whom they’re meant to represent, and instead accept the cuts and the destruction of council services as we know them, are the ones who are really “utterly irresponsible”.

This April Junior Doctors and the BMA are set to continue to escalate their resistance to Jeremy Hunt and the government’s plans to impose new contracts that have been universally panned as being both Not Safe and Not Fair.

These new contracts remove financial penalties for NHS trusts that place Junior Doctors on ‘fatiguing’ shift patterns (and are thus liable to enable unsafe working conditions – tired doctors make mistakes); and unfairly attack Junior Doctor’s pay be reclassifying an additional 50% of currently unsocial hours as part of the standard working week.

Junior Doctor’s and their supporters – led by Kitty Thompson and her ‘Tired Doctors Make Misstakes placard’ picketing outside the BRI 10/3/2016

On top of this, the new contract seem geared to accelerate privatisation. Unsocial hours payments are often cited by private healthcare firms as a ‘barrier’ to their taking over of staff and contracts for some services, removing them will act as a catalyst for the outsourcing of both.

Furthermore, as Dr Lauren Gavaghan recently eloquently explained on LBC (in a video watched by more than 1,000,000 people), expanding work on the weekends isn’t about increasing emergency care (as junior doctors and all NHS staff – myself included – already provide that) but introducing elective non-urgent clinical work into weekends. This is the work that private companies love to take on as they cherry pick the most profitable services from our NHS to maximise their money making; and thus these contracts will help increase the amount of services liable for private healthcare profiteering.

For all these reasons and more we must support the Junior Doctors when they return to picket lines in coming weeks.

The next strike dates are from 8am on the 6th till 8 am on the 8th of April, and then again from 8am till 5pm on 26th and 27th of April.

This second strike will be all out – for the first ever time junior doctors will not provide emergency care (which will instead be covered by consultants).

The government is currently imploding over divisions on the impending EU referendum and the intensification of austerity measures in the recent budget. The escalation by the BMA will put the government under intense pressure (as well as shining a spotlight on the Tory’s gradual assault on our NHS), and in this context could well succeed in forcing another humiliating climbdown.

Tory’s know this, and it is no doubt for this reason that the Tory press has intensified its vilification of junior doctors and the supposedly ‘militant’ BMA. According to reports, junior doctors are being nakedly politically, are only interested in the money, are killing patients with their ‘irresponsible’ striking and should all be fired anyway (according to the Sun).

Greens at the BRI picket 09/03/2016

Despite the best efforts of the Torys (and much slander and misinformation particularly from Jeremy Hunt) and their allies in the media, the Junior Doctors remain overwhelmingly popular with the public. Both the Tories and their press are trying to drive a wedge between striking Junior Doctors and the public (and are going to try to use this latest escalation as a means to discredit them). Attacks on Junior Doctors and the BMA are only going to intensify as the month draws on.

To defend against these attacks, and support our Junior Doctors (striking can be a hard and dispiriting course of action at the best of time, let alone with the attacks in the press) we must stand shoulder to shoulder with them on the picket lines as they fight to not only protect themselves, but also patient and our entire health service. The government has suffered a series of setbacks and is looking increasingly weak. Now is the time to escalate our resistance, to link up our struggles, and to fight back against their agenda of cuts and privatisation.

Once again Bristol Greens will be taking to picket lines across the city to provide SolidariTea (and SolidariCoffee) and practical support. We call on all trade unionist and progressives in our city to do the same. If we all come together to support the Junior Doctors they can win. This would both protect vitally important staff (who are already over worked and under paid) and be a signal victory in the fight against NHS privatisation. It could also significantly contribute to the toppling of this government.

Me providing hot cups of SolidariTea and SolidariCoffee to the BRI picket 10/03/2016

Support the Junior Doctors in their contract dispute with the Government

This branch notes that:

1. The new contracts for Junior Doctors proposed by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and the government constitute an unfair attack on Junior Doctors pay by reclassifying an additional 50% of currently unsocial hours as part of the standard working week.

2. By removing financial penalties for trusts that place Junior Doctors on ‘fatiguing’ shift patterns, the new contracts are liable to enable unsafe working conditions as tired doctors make mistakes.

3. That the BMA has attempted to be as conciliatory as possible – calling off their first set of strikes when the government made slight indications that it would be willing to negotiate, a willingness that was later proven unfounded, and that the BMA hasn’t felt forced to strike in over 40 years.

4. Following implementation of The Health and Social Care Act (2012), over £7 billion of NHS contracts have been issued to private providers.

5. The rate of privatisation increased by 500% from 2013/14 to 2014/15, when over £3.5 billion of contracts issued to private providers in 2014/15.

This branch believes that:

1. The attack on the unsocial hours of Junior Doctors is a prelude to what Jeremy Hunt and the department of health has in store for all NHS workers.

2. That should Jeremy Hunt succeed in imposing these new contracts on Junior Doctors similar contractual arrangements (removing unsocial hours payments) will soon be imposed on the rest of the NHS workforce.

3. That the NHS is under attack from a Tory government that is ideologically determined to see the public health service further marketised and run in the interests of profit

4. That the cost of unsocial hours payments makes most NHS staff unattractive to private health companies, and that removing them will greatly accelerate the outsourcing of staff and the privatisation of our health service.

This Branch resolves to:

1. To issue a public statement of support to Junior Doctors taking part in industrial action at Southmead Hospital, and around Bristol and elsewhere

2. To work with the Bristol Trades Union Council and local BMA Reps to provide practical support where requested.

3. To send at least one branch officer to support the picket lines on strike days and encourage as many others to do the same as possible

4. To publicise the issues of the dispute to our membership via email and any other appropriate channels and encourage members to support the strike and the picket where possible.

5. To invite a BMA Rep to speak about the dispute at our next branch meeting.

In a fresh bout of privatisation the international bankers Citigroup have been brought in to help Network Rail sell 18 railway station that it manages directly – including Bristol Temple Meads.

If stations are sold off for a quick buck, we’ll lose future profits and we’ll lose control over these public spaces.

66% of the UK public want rail in public ownership. Network Rail needs to listen to passengers, not bankers. No more privatisation, no more fragmentation!

Bring Back British Rail and We Own It are organising to stop this latest attempt to privatise public space and sell off another one of our cherished national assets.

We’ll be organising with local activists, unions, and political parties from across the spectrum to halt the sale, and will be launching the campaign with a demonstration, leafleting and petitioning outside Temple Meads on Monday the 7th of March at 9-9:30 am, and 5:30-6:30 pm.

Labour Councillor Mhairi Threlfall who’s supporting the campaign said: “I’ll be there for the evening sessions, have publicised on Twitter and Facebook, and let colleagues friends and family in Edinburough/Glasgow who might want to get involved know.”

Green Mayoral candidate Tony Dyer who’s also on-board says: – “As we seek to rebalance our transport network away from the car towards alternative transport, Temple Meads should be treated as a community asset for the whole city. We need an integrated approach to our public transport; selling off what is probably the single most important element of our transport network to an unknown private owner could seriously undermine efforts to create a more sustainable transport system.”

2. This local campaign has been launched by the Friends Of Suburban Bristol Railways with support of We Own It, the Bristol Labour Party, the Bristol Green Party, the Bristol RMT and TSSA rail unions and the Bristol People’s Assembly.

I joined the Green Party back in October 2014 at the start of the ‘Green surge’. I’d became increasingly aware that they were the only party consistently talking about restructuring the economy in the interests of everyone to tackle not only climate change but also the spiralling inequality infecting our society.

Within a month I’d been co-opted into being the parties Trade Union Liaison Officer, and was busy organising support and ‘Solidari-Tea’ for the NHS strike that winter. Me and my colleagues in 13 different unions across the NHS were striking after the government refused to give us even the miserly 1% pay rise recommended by its own pay review board. After more than 6 years of a freeze on NHS pay, things are becoming increasingly tough for more and more health workers. Green comrades got up at the crack of dawn and came to join me and other staff on the picket lines bringing flasks of hot Soladari-Tea and coffee for everyone (very appreciated on a bitterly cold winters morning). The hot drinks and support helped contribute to the vibrant hopeful mood of the picket, and I knew I had found my political home.

In the little over a year I’ve been involved with the local party since then it has consistently put itself at the heart of movements for social justice across Bristol.

Green councillor Anna McMullan highlighting the plight of Bangladeshi Garment workers at the International Workers Memorial Day event in Bristol April 2015

We’ve brought Solidari-Tea to picket lines across the city. Joining the men and women of the FBU striking against unfair and unsafe pensions that would see 60 year old running into burning buildings, and the RMT fighting to protect jobs and services on the new Inter-City express trains. Most recently we’ve been out in force to support Junior Doctors fighting against unfair and unsafe contracts that could see them working more than 70 hours a week without unsocial pay enhancements for working on Saturdays or into the night.

We’ve sent support to workers at the sharpak Yate food processing factory fighting against the imposition of longer contracts, to teachers at the Winterborne academy fighting against unmanageable workloads and bullying management, to staff demanding their fair share from wage stealing bosses at Café Amore and much more.

Greens campaigning for the Public Ownership of Rail at Temple Meads in Feburary 2015

We’ve joined the Bristol Trades Council in campaigns for the Living Wage, worked with Bristol Stop the War to build opposition to the bombing of Syria, and have been at the heart of the Bristol People’s Assembly and its resistance to cuts and austerity. We’ve taken to the streets to call for the public ownership of our railways with the Action for Rail group, and campaigned against the exploitative practices of rogue landlords and letting agents through ACORN the Community Union.

Green councillor Rob Telford at an ACORN picket of Tobie Holbrock who was refusing to repair unacceptable mould in his rental properties

Its been my great honour to be at the centre of most of this activity, but it was my leading role in organising the Bristol rally against the Trade Union Bill last November that was one of the most fulfilling actions. This brought Greens, trade unionist and members of the local Labour Party together with hundreds of ordinary Bristolians for a rally and demonstration in the fountains against the draconian bill, and imbued us with the spirit to resist these unjust laws.

Concord Health UNISON branch officer Mandy Robinson takes to the mike against the TU Bill, with me and Green comrades in the background. November 2015

Unlike the Labour party that won’t support strikes because it thinks it has to appear to be neutral to look like a party of government, the Green party is unashamed in its support of ordinary people trying to protect their rights and improve their lives. Just as it is unashamed of its support for all groups trying to enact positive social change. On picket lines, marches and demonstrations across our city the Greens are an increasingly regular and prominent fixture. Both in the council and in the streets of our city the Bristol Green party is taking a bold stand for people and planet, and I’m proud to be a part of it

Bristol Greens joining the thousands braving the wet weather for the Bristol Climate March last November.

Some of the Greens at the Bristol People’s March for the NHS 2015

Greens protesting government plans to Scrap the Human Rights act and other things at the Bristol Makes Some Noise against austerity protest last year

We are often told that unions have become irrelevant to modern society, or worse that they are in some way negative.

No institution is perfect, but trade unions do amazing work standing up for their members in the workplace and increasingly in the community (see for example the role unions played locally in helping block the environmentally and medically damaging biomass facility in Avonmouth). Many of us are given negative perceptions of trade unions because of how they are portrayed in the press (usually only ever mentioned if they’ve been forced into industrial action and then only described as militants needlessly causing trouble) and the legacy of the 1970s.

People who are against unions often argue that in the past ‘over mighty union barons’ ‘held the country to ransom’ and would strike ‘at the drop of a hat’. There may be some small germs of truth in this, but this is a gross exaggeration and is in part the result of attempts to undermine the legitimacy of unions and collective action. Even if this had been the case the situation in modern Britain is so far removed it makes such comparison meaningless.

Today union membership is at a historic low (though it has moderately increased in recent years), as is the power and influence of unions in our society. They’re even marginalised in the Labour party these days (though this could change under Corbyn). We already have some of the most restrictive trade union laws in the ‘democratic’ world which are about to get even more restrictive with the governments draconian new strike legislation, making union action very difficult. Furthermore, no worker ever takes the decision to strike and lose pay lightly (especially with the financial hardship of recent years), and with unions so comparatively weak and increasingly defensive the situation has to be pretty bad before they feel forced to resort to striking.

The decline of union power seen in terms of membership and coverage of collective bargaining agreements

This has been the nature of the industrial action I have been involved in as a steward and branch officer for my hospital’s branch of UNISON. Continued pay freezes and rises below inflation have seen the value of NHS pay fall by between 10-16% since 2008. At the same time Government policies – like cuts to community care and other public services – have led to a huge increase in hospital usage (by 10% between 2013 and 2014 alone), whilst we have lost 35,000 staff (and 10,000 beds) since 2010. Those of us who are left are doing more work, for less money, whilst our pensions are attacked (we pay more in each year, for more years, and get less out at the end) in a health service with an increasingly insecure looking future.

Yet it still took until the winter of 2014 for our unions to decide enough is enough and resort to nationwide strike action. Even then it was only two 4 hour strikes over two months (and the threat of further action), as they wanted to minimize the impact on patients and were scared of being portrayed as too militant in the press. A far cry from the irresponsible militant image peddled by the Government and mainstream media.

My above example also highlights the pivotal role unions still continue to play in protecting the interests and wages of their members at work. By actively asserting the rights of employees to the fruits of their own labour they can act to restrain excessive pay at the top. Stronger unions advancing the interests of their members provided a strong check on the growth of inequality (which has exploded since the 1980s). In the 1970s the richest 1% in the UK owned around 5% of all wealth. Today the richest 1% own more than 15% of all of the wealth in Britain.

The decline of union power was just one of many factors that have seen Britain experience the fastest growth in inequality of any OECD country. But we should not ignore the important role unions can and do play in the fight against inequality. Rebuilding the union movement expanding into the precarious industries like social care, temping agencies call centers etc, and giving it the confidence to fight, could go a long way checking the insecurity and low wages so emblematic of work in modern Britain. It’s doing it that’s the hard thing.

As the number of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements negotiated by unions has fallen – the pale blue line) income inequality has increased exponentially

That’s why we need to ensure all of us active in political and social movements not only join but also get active in unions in our workplaces. And if there isn’t one, try and set one up (a hard task alone but local unions and trades councils and unions already organising in that industry elsewhere will be only too happy to help you). We also need to encourage as many of our coworkers, friends and people we know in general to do likewise.

Unions have always had a larger social role beyond the ‘bread and butter’ issues of jobs and wages. Time and time again their financial and organisational support has been essential for the success of campaigns from the fight to win the vote for men and women to the anti-war and the now the anti-asuterity movement. Increasingly through initiatives like the Campaign Against Climate Change and A Million Climate Jobs Now unions are getting involved in the central challenge of our time; the fight to stop global warming and the destruction of the habitability of our planet.

As individuals we are almost powerless to overcome the status quo and effect change in our society. But collectively we are strong. Unions allow us to come together to stand up for ourselves and provide an organisational structure for that collective strength. For all these reasons and more, we need unions and we have to work together to defend them, especially in light of the government’s most recent attack.

Next week the TUC will be launching its #HeartUnions campaign to highlight the amazing work trade unions do in our society.
There’s a fair bit going on in Bristol. The Trades Council has a list of some of this activity. If you can, make sure you get involved: